Here we go:
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Life doesn’t change much after my awkward date with Faye. Each morning I get up, watch the news about how crazy the world is, rush to work and try to brighten up my day flirting with the pretty girl… Everything just continues in a cycle like this. The only difference exists in the topic of my casual at work conversation with Faye; having known her true identity, I would like to poke around with some naughty questions sometimes:
“Can you make your eyes glow?”
-“Nahh… You watched too much old sci-fi shows. However, in dark places you can probably see only a faint red in my pupils when I have my infra-red analyzer on.”
“So you don’t transform either?”
-“Stop being stupid!”
“Can you open a panel or two?”
-“Why? You can’t have access to them here anyway.”
The good thing is, Faye doesn’t seem to be offended by my curiosities at all. And as days pass, she gets used to give me answers straight away and I get chances of knowing more about the real her:
“How much battery life do you have left?”
-“72.3%. That’s about 70 more active hours with my normal performances.”
“Who gives you necessary services?”
-“I’m pretty good self-maintained. Lin sometimes comes to help a little bit.”
“What if you have severe damage?”
-“The robotic department of the cops’ office takes care of that. However, since I don’t belong to them anymore now I have to pay all the costs myself.”
But real changes are happening in the outside world: ever since the androids had to identify themselves with a special tag in public, the seemingly harmonious society began to split up. I never knew there were this many boomers around. Now the haters gang up, forming mob groups, most of which are consisted of unemployed city dwellers, and they initiated more violence against the boomers. The free-living boomers, on the other hand, group together too because of the need of self-protection and/or isolation by the people around them. Then more people join the anti-boomer mobs in fear of that the uniting of boomers will threat their everyday life…The governmental propaganda machine is claiming the Human Rights Renaissance as the greatest movement to regain the superiority of the elite humanity, though in fact they are bringing this country into a mess quite obviously. And finally, the chaotic outside world starts to affect our peaceful life in the lab.
It’s just about 4 o’ clock in a Wednesday afternoon, we are having our routine lab meeting. Faye suddenly became very agitated. “What is it?” Doc asked her. “Excuse me, Doc, I have an emergency from a friend, I must go to help her now.” And then she left in a hurry. “Hey, wait!” I followed her to the door, “where are you going? Don’t make Doc and I worried here.” She heads to the subway entrance “I’ll explain later, have to go now…”
Upset about the situation, I excused to Doc and followed her to the subway. Luckily I caught her on the train. “What happened?” “It’s the mobs! They are in Lin’s shop and she is in great danger! I must save her.” “Relax, is this reported to the police already? If not we’d better do so ASAP.” I continue: “We don’t know how many of them are there, so do not just take the risk yourself.” She seems a little bit reassured: “Thank you. You are really kind.”
The train seems to take longer to arrive at our stop and we rushed out of the subway. Across the street I see a gang of about a dozen dudes, surrounding the smashed door of the convenient store. As we approach them, I recognize a fragmented female form lying on the side walk in front of the door, and the people around are hitting her with everything they have in hand. “Ahh!” cries out Faye and she dashes to the group. “No, calm down, Faye!” But she is already in the middle of the gang before she hears me.
“WTF, you’ve got a problem with this, girl? … Oooo, fun! Another boomer!” A guy of the group yells out, “Let’s take her apart, too!” The crowd cheers and starts to try grasping Faye.
Things are not looking good. I anxiously check around and see a cop near by. I walk up and gesture him for help. However, the cop is the just watching this indifferently as if he did not see me pleading. Faye is now at the center of the gang: she dodges and jumps at the iron tubes, beer bottles and household tools, finding her way with some occasional counter moves only to push her attackers away. It’s not easy for those big guys to get her. I never know she is this agile and so skilled at fighting, it must have something to do with her days working with the cops. But with Lin on her back now, Faye is obviously in disadvantage on her way out. After taking one punch on her shoulder she drops Lin on the ground, and three big guys are taking a hold on her. I have to do something.
“Gentlemen!” I shout to the crowd, trying to look as formidable as possible. Obviously lacking the muscles to settle this in a forceful way, I try to find a more tactical solution. Good, everyone pauses. I point to Faye: “Please do not harm my private property. I apologize for what my body guard unit did to all of you, for I should have had tighter control on it. But…” I raise my tone and put my most menacing face on, “none of you want to be reported as ‘creating bad image of the great Human Right Renaissance’, right?” Speaking of this, I also hint the cop, who is still nearby. Then I say to Faye: “I order you to come back here, Number Seven! How many times I’ve told you not to deal with these trivial stuffs on the street!” Faye makes a quick eye contact with me and understands, lowering her head in a submissive manner: “Yes, master.”
“Shame on you! You sick robo-lover!” The “gentlemen” are now scolding, “Go have fun with your boomer bitch until one day your position is also taken by them!” Although obviously pissed, they don’t want to find trouble with me since they are not sure what a figure I can be, and thank goodness personal rights are strictly protected by law. Then the police come and dismiss the gang. The previously idling cop turns to me after reported the scene to his headquarters: “Sir, you seem to know the damaged android here, so I’ll just leave it to you. We have already estimated the property damage here, and you can claim for insurance payments if you are the owner.” “Hey wait, you are not going to investigate who is responsible in this case? What if the owner needs to sue them?” I complain. “That is not our priority, sir. As you’ve just said, trivial stuffs like this are nowadays way too much on the streets.” And that’s my answer.
Faye hugs me tight after the police have left: “Oh, thank you Gira, I was so scared.” “It’s okay… Hey, are you alright?” “All systems green, I’m fine. But, Lin…” She says so as she turns to the broken android on the ground. Lin is in a really bad shape now: a huge wound runs from her waist to pelvis, and all the innards were randomly ripped out by force, including what seems to be a backbone of her body, leaving only a few cables that barely keep the upper and lower torso connected. A sizzling noise and burnt smell is emitting from her damaged body. The only thing that distinguishes Lin from a pile of scrapped electronics is her slightly twitching head with the wide open eyes. Seeing this, Faye points down her head and remained quite for a long time, and she looks like crying, only that there are no tears dropped. “Don’t blame yourself too much, there were too many of them and we were quite far away.” I comfort her. “Let’s get Lin to my place and see what we can do.” She says so after mourning for her friend. We bend over and try to pick up whatever is left of Lin, as much as I can.
In her basement, Faye shut down the remaining body of her friend down and examined the damages carefully. “Lin, please just rest in peace for a while.” She says so as she closed Lin’s eyelids. Then she goes to her wardrobe-like cabinet, inside of which was filled with android parts. She looks through a collection of the parts and sighs: “I don’t have enough spares to save her. Her parts are too old and they are not manufactured since two years ago.” “Then we have no way to let Lin functioning at all?” I avoid using words like “life” or “death” here, partly because I don’t what to sadden Faye more, partly because I’m still not used to do so. “I’m afraid you are right.” says Faye in grief.
“Or,” I try to use a cheering voice, “we can see if there are still some available parts for Lin in the underground trade. You’ve heard about the black market of androids right? Could you use the wireless and search for its whereabouts?” Hearing this, Faye frowns and pauses for several seconds and says: “Yes, that might be our only hope. Let me see… me see… see… see… see…” Suddenly Faye freezes and her voice slows into a series of metallic sounds before it stops. After 10 seconds or so, she start talking again, but her voice is now obviously robotic, just like the sound from the automatic answering machine: “Warning. This unit carried out an illegal action and was subject to emergency shut down. Please check with its programming and report to the authorities. Warning. This unit carried out an illegal action and was subject to…” Faye stands there repeating these sentences with a blank stare into space. I am not sure about what to do now, and start to feel a little bit of panic, well, of excitement, too. After she repeated the sentences about twenty times, she becomes all normal and alive again.
“Faye, what happened? Don’t trick me like that anymore.” This time she is not laughing, she gives me a “what?” look and turns to examine her cabinet with spare parts again, after that, she sighs: “I don’t have enough spares to save her. Her parts are too old and they are not manufactured since two years ago.” Stunned, I shake her by the shoulders: “Faye, are you alright?” “I’m fine. Why?” “You were doing the same thing about five minute ago, and you said exactly the same words to me.” “Oh, I did?” “You don’t remember? What happened to you? Do you know that you were repeating in a scary voice about some legal stuff just now?”
“No. I don’t remember them at all.” After thinking for a while, Faye continues: “But I think I have a clue about what you were saying. It must be my overarching programming.” “Overarching programming?” “Yes, it’s a set of core instructions independent from my AI and system setting, which basically is composed of Asimov’s Three Laws and all currently applicable laws. It serves as the baseline restrictions of all my functioning. Whenever my behavior from my AI or other programming conflicts its settings, the overarching program kicks in and shuts down my CPU. Then all my system settings and data will be restored to the status of several minutes before the behavior after the reboot. It is a system necessary for all android to act within the limits.”
“I see…” Then I pull her toward Lin: “So what can we do about your friend now?” I am expecting some more memorizing gesture like a proper funeral for a person, but Faye says in a gloomy tone: “I’ll take her to the governmental android recycle department. All android damaged beyond repair must be gathered and recycled together according to law. You know Lin can’t disobey that and all I can do is to help her. Well, just imagine this is the final seeing-off.” At this moment I feel so sad for androids like Faye: they are unconditionally obeying the laws, which is not at all enforced now to protect them during this crazy political movement. “Okay, let me go with you.” That is all I can say.
Having said farewell to Lin we are back to Faye’s place. “Thank you so much, Gira. Today is such a nightmare for me. I could not get through all these without your help.” I can see the sorrow written on Faye’s face. “Hey, it’s over now.” I pat her on the shoulder. She looks at me: “Gira, would you promise me a favor?” “What?” “I’m so scared. I dare not go to the streets alone. Could you please walk me home after work tomorrow like this?” She says so, like a frightened kitty. “Sure thing, Miss. I’ll be always by your side. Em… what did you call me earlier today, my dear Number Seven?” She smiles as I hoped: “Don’t ever think of hearing that word from me again, mister. But thank you, anyway.”
(to be continued...)